Recently Elon Musk offered 100 million dollars to reward teams that come up with the best proposals for carbon capture on a global scale.
We are Team IOB. IOB is an acronym for Ideas Outside the Box. A bit misleading, as Team IOB’s proposal does not utilize any new ideas. Also not new: our planet’s own natural ability to capture carbon. Since the industrial age has resulted in a need to enhance Earth’s carbon capture process, Team IOB has realized an effective and uncomplicated way to do it.
Floating platforms placed offshore arid planet regions can pull from two existing energy states of adjacent ocean water masses—hot and cold. Solar heated ocean water and frigid deep-ocean temperatures in close proximity result in an untapped energy resource which can be used to abundantly duplicate Earth’s natural water cycle. Freshwater, now available to otherwise unthinkable regions, will ignite the expansion of photosynthesis—earth’s existing natural carbon capture mechanism—and create a new freshwater resource for our planet.
I have had interests in solutions for global energy problems since 2013. My family and I were seriously injured in a car accident that year. For four days my continued life was not assured. Obviously, I came through, but I was largely bed ridden and not able to work for three years. Though the injuries rendered me unable to work, they in turn provided an immense amount of time to think. I believe my ideas that I am documenting are technically and economically reasonable. During my recovery I did more than think about the technical things I have experience with. With a new acute awareness of how precious life really is, I do my best to better communicate ideas of positive contributions during my limited gift of my time remaining on this earth. For a micro-fraction of Elon Musk’s reward, prototypes of some parts of the concepts in this letter are being built by Team IOB. During my medical sabbatical, I was able to complete successful personal experiments within the financial constraints of my disabled personal financial situation and previously acquired tools of my trade. (i.e. < $25)
Through my thoughts on solutions for energy problems, highly inspired from my experience as a power plant operator, I have debated ideas in my mind and honed plausible and hopeful ideas regarding creating commercially viable green energy and water desalination processes. In fact, the original goal of my thoughts in 2013, related to ideas I had to utilize waste heat at the combined cycle electrical power plant where I had been working prior to our accident. Almost daily I carried on my own internal debate. Seems like I always had what I thought was a better idea that improved upon previous ideas. At some point soon after my initial goals related to finding efficiency improvements for combined cycle power plants, I developed a greater interest in two areas. The first area was with ideas that would enhance the economies of green energy. The second area of interest was exploring ways to desalinate ocean water utilizing the water condensation process used at a power plant steam generator. My proposed process avoids the high energy and high maintenance requirements of the reverse osmosis method of desalinating ocean water.
From a technical standpoint, the carbon capture answer that will follow in this proposal is quite simple in that it requires no new or novel technology. I believe the financial investment to achieve viable carbon capture would be similar, in steps, to the costs of constructing large aqueduct systems such as the California Water Project constructed during the 60’s and 70’s. Each step towards meaningful global carbon capture is likely commercially viable.
My personal childhood observations of the 1960’s California Water Project’s transformation to what was California’s Central Valley Desert into prime agricultural land, is very much an inspiration to this proposal. Every aspect of this proposed solution utilizes technologies that are commercially already in use. And because this projects near original goal was to find solutions to California’s water shortages, its implementation presents a mutual solution to two significant global problems. Very importantly, because it produces a product, freshwater, it can produce water and agricultural revenues to assure the investment is self-sustainable.
With the valued immense help from Forward Web, this web site is my mechanism to publicly introduce the idea, and then on this News and Updates page, chronicle the progress of the project as it moves along. My project may or may not be successful. Though I do hope that this project is successful, my greater inspiration is that I personally find this endeavor to be a gratifying educational journey of discovery. If you find my project to be of interest to yourself or educational for youthful others, please spread the word and check back on this section from time to time. I will try to keep this developing non-fiction novel as interesting as I can.
Thank You
Jim
